The following relates to the linguistic arts. It finds particular application in conjunction with translation of text from a source language to a target language, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the following is also amenable to other like applications, such as electronic foreign language learning tools.
A common problem in the authoring of text translations is the “tip of the tongue” problem. The author is proceeding apace in writing the translation, but comes up against a word or phrase in the source language which is unfamiliar to the author, or which the author is unable to effectively express in the target language.
To address this problem, the author may consult a bilingual dictionary, which may be in either paper or electronic form. In either case, the author must stop work and access the bilingual dictionary. A heavily abridged bilingual dictionary may not suffice, since the “tip of the tongue” problem typically arises in non-standard situations such as collocations, idiomatic phrases, and so forth. Such complex or non-standard forms are sometimes omitted from abridged dictionaries, and so a fairly comprehensive bilingual dictionary should be consulted.
A comprehensive bilingual dictionary has extensive entries for each word, typically including a substantial number of example source language contexts and corresponding target language translations, collocations, and so forth. If a word has more than one meaning or can be used as more than one part of speech, then each possible usage is extensively detailed. Still further, the author may need to consult several entries if the untranslated portion is a phrase including several words. Such searching can become time consuming and burdensome for the author.
The following copending, commonly assigned applications: Bi-Dimensional Rewriting Rules for Natural Language Processing (Xerox ID 20040117-US-NP, Ser. No. 11/018,892 filed Dec. 21, 2004) and Retrieval Method For Translation Memories Containing Highly Structured Documents (Xerox ID 20031674-US-NP, Ser. No. 11/018,891 filed Dec. 21, 2004) are herein incorporated by reference.